Hot Leaf Juice
by Simply Christian
Summary: Despite tearing up the tea shop, Pao finds very little reason to take any punitive action towards Lee.


Aftermath of "City of Walls and Secrets."

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><p>Pao grumbled as he swept the smaller debris that was a leftover from the unannounced duel between his employee Lee and that fanatic. Aforementioned waiter was lifting the larger, broken pieces of the tables out of Pao's Family Tea Shop, while Mushi took over cleaning duties in the kitchen.<p>

The tea shop owner did calculations in his head on how much it was going to cost to replace the tables and chairs damaged in the fight, not to mention get a new door. He briefly considered firing the reckless youngster, before deciding that there were many reasons why that impulse would definitely be put on the list entitled "Very Bad Ideas That Will Bring Ruin to Your Business," chief among them being that Mushi would most certainly refuse to work without his nephew. He also considered taking the cost of the furniture out of Lee's pay, but that idea was also quickly discarded. Pao decided the long term consequences of forcing an already sore employee to pay for damages that he really was not completely responsible for would far outweigh the short term cost coverage.

His reason for keeping Mushi was obvious. The man was a genius tea-maker, and the primary reason business at Pao's Family Tea Shop had drastically increased the past few days. Pao would be the first to admit that his own tea was not the best in the world, and that it was simply lack of competition that kept his shop in business. He had overheard Mushi's first reaction to the tea, but he had to agree with Lee's assessment that tea was just "hot leaf juice." Then again, perhaps that was the reason why his old brew did not sell well. The new tea, however, was exquisite enough to be worthy of the Earth King. Pao hoped the idea wouldn't enter his Mushi's head.

The benefits of keeping young Lee were not apparent at first.

Initially, Pao was afraid that the scar would turn off potential customers, but that did not turn out to be the case. At first, the teashop owner chalked up the customers' toleration of Lee's appearance to Mushi's tea, but as the next few days rolled by, he realized that was probably not the reason. He noticed that an unusually high ratio of the new customers were actually young women who paid more attention to the waiter than to the tea (Lee seemed oblivious to this).

Then he was nervous that Lee's sullen attitude would displease customers, but he did not worry about that long. Lee never went to work with a smile, but he managed to rein in his overall grumpiness so that he looked more like a serious young man than a surly teenager. Although, after Pao noticed all the gazes the girls gave Lee, the teashop owner doubted that anything less than breathing fire would get them to run away and never come back.

And then there was Lee's skill with swords. This was probably the most surprising bonus of Mushi's nephew. While the duel did destroy half of his teashop (to be fair, Lee did not start the fight), it did spark the idea to Pao that in addition to being a waiter, Mushi's nephew could also act as a guard or bouncer in a pinch. His teashop was not in the worst part of the Lower Ring, but there were a few… disreputable people that could make life difficult for Pao, most often in the form of bullies who thought they could get away with free tea. However, with a swordsman up his sleeve, those rough customers could be dealt with and/or detained long enough for the Dai Li or City Guard to show up. Though a fat lot of good the latter did… well, perhaps he couldn't blame them _much_ for not trying to get between two furiously fighting swordsmen.

Pao made a mental note to take a bit of money out of savings to purchase one if not two dao swords for young Lee. There was no sentiment with this decision, only practicality. There weren't always going to be City Guardsmen to borrow swords from, after all.

All in all, Pao knew that he was very lucky to have Mushi and Lee work in his shop; he dreaded the day that a nobleman or merchant from the Upper Ring caught wind of Mushi's skills and tried to take him away.

Pao decided that both of his employees were due for a raise.

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><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: This oneshot is basically how I think Pao views his two employees "Mushi" and "Lee." We definitely see why Pao would want to keep "Mushi," but I think that he would also have reasons to keep "Lee" on as well, besides him being "Mushi's" nephew.

What does puzzle me is how Pao says in "City of Walls and Secrets," that "Mushi" is due for a raise (without any prompting or suggestion from anyone), but when Quon comes to offer a job in the Upper Ring, the best he can counter is meaningless promotion.

And yes, I know that Zuko already has his own dao swords, but Pao doesn't know that. I imagine that when Pao makes his offer, Zuko will inform him that he is already in possession of his weapons of choice.

Speaking of dual wielding: wielding two swords is a tough skill to learn. You do _not_ start out with two swords. In order to learn it, you first need to learn to wield one sword by itself in your dominant hand until you master it. Then you need to need to master wielding a sword in your non-dominant hand. _Then_ you can learn how to use both swords at once. There was a saying in Medieval Europe about dual wielding: "The one who duels with two swords is either a fool or a master."


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